Snow Tires: Michelin vs. Hakkapeliitta

I need winter tires for my 2016 Golf.  I’ve used Hakkapeliittas for the last 20 years and had Hakkapeliitta R2s on my Golf for two seasons.  They’re excellent winter tires, but wore quickly at high speed.  

I’m considering Michelin X-ice 3s this time as they have a 40,000 mile warranty and are very good tires.

Some Canadian tire guy on YouTube said while Nokian constantly innovates and uses new technologies in their latest Hakkapeliittas, Michelin hasn’t really kept up technologically with the X-ice3.  

Another video on video on YouTube (at 1:50) suggests the X-ice is a better tire: more progressively communicative and with far better tread wear than the Hakkapeliitta.

What do you guys think?  I’m deciding between these two tires, not considering anything else.

Based on your description, it sounds like you will benefit more from the longer-life Michelin than you will from an extra 0.1% of new technology.

However, the variable you didn't mention was the kind of winter driving you have to do.  When we got X-ices for my son's car, the alternative at the time (package from the dealer) was rated slightly better for deep snow and ice – what you might call "hardcore winter" or "the full Scandinavia" – whereas the X-ice was rated better for "city winter": plowed streets/highways, slush, all the urban fun stuff.  Based on the intended use of the car, we went with the Michelins, and they were great.

Sorry if I have made your decision tree more complicated.

In reply to Clarty :

I don’t have experience with the current version of the x-Ice, but I ran them for 100k on my old Accent from 10/2010 through 9/2015 year-round. I went through 2-sets, and they were basically done by the time I sold the car. 

Their grip on ice was downright impressive. I didn’t know that much grip was possible without studs. They also did excellent in deep snow - more than once I was doing 60mph on unplowed roads with snow deep enough that it was constantly hitting the undercarriage. Their only weak point was slush. They were still better than any non-winter tire, but you really had to slow down to get the car to turn. 

I know you’re limited to these two choices, but as a point of reference: we also ran General Altimax Arctic tires on several of our other vehicles. I felt their performance was more balanced across ice/snow/slush, but the ultimate grip was much lower than the x-Ice. 

Where I am in Canada, a good ice tire is better than a snow tire.  I went with the Michelin X-Ice and it is phenominal on ice, and only pretty good in snow. 

They did get me to work on the only "snow day" the School District has called in over 30 years, in a 2-wheel drive lowered Chevy pickup. But I got stuck on my own street just meters from my driveway on a different heavy-dump day.

There's also Blizzacks and Continental WinterContact Si's, which are both excellent tires. Like others have said, some are better snow tires, some are better ice tires, and some are better on wet or dry roads you need to figure out what's most important to you and choose accordingly.

If you go to the Canadian Tire website, they list relative performance results from many of their winter tires, rating wet, dry, snow, ice, mileage, sound, etc.

I used to work for a tire dealer that sold Goodyear and Nokian, I can honestly That in my 2.5 years being there I never had a customer comeback for any Hakka.

1SlowVW said:

I used to work for a tire dealer that sold Goodyear and Nokian, I can honestly That in my 2.5 years being there I never had a customer comeback for any Hakka.

 

By customer comeback, do you mean nobody bought them again, or nobody had any problems with them?

A few years ago C&D did a test from a Nordic test facility of those two tires and ranked them 1 and 2. They produced different results compared to tire racks tests of the X-Ice3 vs. other competitors.

I have experience with the X-Ice3 and Blizzak WS-80. I like the X-Ice3 better. I'm surprised how well they do in snow despite the narrow tread gaps.

Judging by tread pattern, I'd say deep wet snow or slush are where the Xi3 will suffer compared to some of the other tires.  The tread pattern is more optimized for dry snow that packs well, hardpack and ice.  

I have X Ice on my A4 and love them. 3rd season and minimal wear, and I don't drive gently with them. They are excellent on Ice. Drove some roads that were icy and almost didn't realize it.  Good and bad there. Great traction but driving a bit too fast for conditions. 

I had the XIce on a Golf TDI as well and it went anywhere. Sold those to a friend with a GTI a couple years ago and I think he still has them.  

Had Nokians on a Miata and it went anywhere I wanted as long as it didn't get too deep to get the drive wheels off the ground. They wore much faster though.  They are also harder to find a retailer for them around me.

Thanks for the info on this. I was just thinking the same question. I ordered my first set of snow tires in 18 years (I've lived in Texas for 16 years) I went with the Michelins. We will see how they work in Colorado Winters. 

Simple - what do you get the most of??

Snow - Hakka's

Ice - Michelin

X-Ice tires aren't much better than regular tires in the snow.

I've had Winterport 4D on my WRX for almost a decade now. We don't get a ton of snow around here, but we get some, and we get ice, and they've always performed well. Plus, in the dry they feel like a performance all-season, basically. 

We won the 2WD class of the Wellsboro Winter Rally last year (which was almost entirely ice and frozen mud, with little actual snow), in an e30 running Altimax Arctics. They are really soft sidewalls and not much fun on the road but do very well on ice. 

You said you weren't interested in other options, but I will second irish44j on the General Altimax Arctic.

They are a knock-off of a tire produced by Gislaved tires and they have been in-turn also used as a knock-off by a bunch of chinese brands. They are a great combination tire and in most cases will cost MUCH less than the two options you listed.

NGTD said:

X-Ice tires aren't much better than regular tires in the snow.

I’m sure it’s very vehicle-dependent, but that’s the exact opposite of the ~100,000 miles I put on them. X-Ice were downright amazing in the snow AND ice. I was able to drive comfortable above legal speeds in snow as deep as the undercarriage. 

While I never had Altimax Arctics on the Accent, I did have them on 3 other vehicles. They were good in snow, but didn’t have as high a limit of traction as the X-Ice. The Altimax were on a Nissan 200sx, 1st gen Fit, and our 2014 Town & Country, while the X-Ice were on my 07 Accent. 

1SlowVW said:

I used to work for a tire dealer that sold Goodyear and Nokian, I can honestly That in my 2.5 years being there I never had a customer comeback for any Hakka.

 

That was not my best written sentence. I never had a customer return unsatisfied.

I had Altimax Arctics on the old W126 300SE, and they were decent, but got lumpy pretty quickly.  

I live in rural southeastern Minnesota.  We get a mix, but I suppose it’s primarily snow.  It’s seldom a big snow event around here, but frequent snowfalls in the 1 to 3 or 4-inch range that accumulates without melting in between.

I do need something capable of getting through deep snow, which tends to become packed into a thick sheet of ice in spots.

I bought Altimax Arctics for Mrs. Skinny's Infiniti M35x because they were hundreds of dollars cheaper than the X-Ice were. In my research a couple years ago, the X-Ice had the tiniest edge over the Alitmax's.  Our first winter with them is coming up....

NGTD said:

You said you weren't interested in other options, but I will second irish44j on the General Altimax Arctic.

They are a knock-off of a tire produced by Gislaved tires and they have been in-turn also used as a knock-off by a bunch of chinese brands. They are a great combination tire and in most cases will cost MUCH less than the two options you listed.

Trivia: Altimax Arctics actually ARE Swedish-designed Gislaved NordFrosts (not knockoffs). Continental owns both Gislaved and General. The Nord Frosts are called Altimax Arctic only in Canada and the US - probably because nobody over here can pronouce "Gislaved" lol, and "General" sounds way more 'Murican :)

Only thing about the Altimax is this: they're studdable.  IMO, if you care at all about performance on ice or polished hardpack, you either buy a studless tire or you run studs.  Running a studdable tire without studs gives up a lot of ice grip, as the tread pattern and rubber compound is designed around having studs for ice grip.  A studless tire usually has a softer compound and tigher tread (which isn't as good in deep snow) to get more grip on ice and polished hardpack without needing studs.  

Years back I ran un-studded Firestone Winterforce tires on a Nissan Hardbody because they were cheap.  And they were just that - cheap.  They were not awesome in both snow AND ice. 

The following year I bought the same tire in studded. Improvement on a scale of 1 to 10? 1, maybe 2.

Yeah, the Winterforce was a solidly mediocre tire for a long time.  The design was ancient prior to the recent update.  

In reply to rslifkin :

Fifteen years ago I had Hakkapeliittas on my Volvo 744 Turbo.  On a perfectly clear, dry road, I lost focus and hit a curb, popping both right-side Hakkas.  I ended up with the two good Hakkapeliittas in front, and new Winterforces on the back. 

While the Hakkapeliittas were soft, the Winterforce tires were horrifying.  

We had Michelins and had no complaints beyond my wife’s habit of getting flats. They wore like iron and worked well through some bad storms.  

I'm happy with the all around performance of the Blizzaks I bought last year, although they do seem to be wearing quickly.